


Metamorphose

by lacemonster



Series: Thanks to 200 AO3 Subscribers [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: Age Difference, Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Attempted Murder, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Enemies, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 00:45:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16051970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacemonster/pseuds/lacemonster
Summary: Based on an ask/prompt for: "In the Batman Beyond (2016) universe, if Dick finally reached out to Al Ghul!Damian again after the Terry ordeal. Tired old men make amends".Set loosely in Batman Beyond Rebirth.Damian brings his fight to the batcave. After defeating the new Batman, he sets his eyes on Dick. In one last battle between old friends, Damian studies the way Dick has changed throughout the years, and fights to rid himself of his old emotional attachments.





	Metamorphose

**Author's Note:**

> For my 200 subscribers celebration, I accepted five prompts. This, my final prompt, is: "in the Batman Beyond (2016) universe, if Dick finally reached out to Al Ghul!Damian again after the Terry ordeal. Tired old men make amends, make love, that kind of stuff".
> 
> Sooooo I really loved this prompt idea but I’m not too familiar with Batman Beyondverse, so there’s probably going to be some mistakes. I really just wanted to write Dick and Damian as old men haha. Also due to length and the tone of the piece, there probably isn't as much physical affection as you were hoping for. I hope that's okay and that you liked it anyways. :'D
> 
> Also, sorry for the long wait on this one. I decided early on that I really wanted to do this prompt but part of me was like... maybe I should read Batman Beyond Rebirth to make sure I get everything right? And I kept pushing it off and pushing it off and then finally I had to accept the reality that I was never going to make time to read it. :'D

 

In many ways, Grayson hadn’t changed at all.

Damian watched the crinkles around his eyes, the faint lines around his mouth, and wondered how much smiling Dick did these days.

He certainly wasn’t smiling now.

Damian met Dick’s one blue eye, unflinching. Memories flitted past him, as they always did whenever he faced off with his old mentor. He remembered those foolish, yet precious, days— _we were the best_ —when Dick still wore the cowl, when he would crack a joke and smile. And Damian, young and stubbornly insistent that he knew his father better than Dick despite all evidence to the contrary, would yell at him:

_Batman doesn’t smile._

Damian added weight to his foot. The new Batman didn’t even groan. He was likely fighting to stay awake, if he was conscious at all. Spread across the platform of the batcave was a line of broken glass, destroyed momentos, and spattered blood. Standing on the other side of the wreckage was Dick. He hadn’t even flinched at Terry’s punishment, but it’d be incorrect to describe his eyes as _cold._ Instead, they seemed to look deeply into Damian’s, pleading for a humanity that wasn’t there.

He really hadn’t changed much.

Locking eyes with Dick drudged up all the hard feelings over the years. The anger, the disappointment, the shame. Yet, for all the betrayals and all the gray hairs, Damian still found Dick’s eyes to be remarkably beautiful—those brilliant blues that Damian had spent nights dreaming about, those blues that he had stared at from a distance and tried again and again to capture on a page. There was a point in time where Damian would have done anything for those eyes.

Then again, he would have done anything for that cowl too.

Damian’s blood began to boil. Terry was his objective but he had grown bored of him. It was high time that Damian finished all of his old business with his father, including Dick. In Talia’s final moments, she had warned Damian to let go of his past. To estrange himself from all old attachments, the very sacrifice she had to make when she ordered him dead— _before Father brought me back to life, when the entire family dove straight into hell to bring me back, and everyone was there except for you, Grayson, you were only pretending to be dead—_ and spent the rest of her life fighting against her beloved.

Damian stepped over Terry’s body. He flicked the blood off his sword. Dick’s fingers twitched for escrima on his harness but he didn’t reach for them, not yet.

“You won’t win,” Damian warned him. “You’ll sooner break a hip.”

“We don’t have to fight at all. Come home, Damian. This isn’t who you are.”

“You have no idea who I am.”

He cut the conversation short, charging forward with his sword. Dick withdrew the escrima, deflecting the attack. And there was a brief exchange, when they were matching blow for blow, while the crack of the escrima and the hiss of the sword sounded off in the air—that Damian saw the same man he met all those years ago. The young man that moved as effortlessly and fluid as a breeze. The young man who was as deceptively confident as Damian had been, despite being just as lost and unsure and fatherless.

But time wore on. Even before Damian drew first blood, he began to see Dick for who he was rather than who he wished he was. Dick’s movements had become slow, weak. The mighty swing of the sword grazed against Dick’s face and Dick wheeled back, a look of wide-eyed betrayal in his eyes. He recovered from the shock of Damian aiming for his head, blocking Damian’s next strike.

They pushed against each other in a match of strength, weapons grinding, feet firmly planted into the ground.

“Leading the Assassins, ordering hits, killing people, plotting against the world—is _that_ who you are?” Dick spat at him. His teeth were visible in their snarl, as opposed to the toothy, wholehearted smile that Damian remembered from his boyhood.

“Nothing has changed. I’ve always been more powerful—the only difference is that I’ve moved on.” Damian narrowed his eyes at Dick, meeting his furious gaze. He could feel years’ long resentment brewing inside of his chest, rearing its head. “All these years and you’re still his lapdog, when all he’s done is take away from you. All these years and you still take his side over mine.”

Dick pulled back an arm, striking at Damian. Damian deflected it. He blocked the quick second blow, moving backwards to avoid Dick’s onslaught of attacks. Damian swung hard, knocking Dick back a step. They met in the middle once again.

Dick was breathing hard. He could no longer pretend that he wasn’t out of breath. Already, sweat began to gather near his hairline, that beautiful black fading into dull silver—Damian would never confess it, but there were still nights where he ran his fingers through his own hair, simultaneously imagining the tresses and hand as Dick’s.

“That’s not true, Damian. I was always on your side,” Dick said between breaths. “You just—you just _want_ it to be true. It’s the only way you can forgive yourself for leaving.”

Damian growled as he yanked back his sword and swung. It landed, cutting Dick across the stomach, but the gash wasn’t deep, just enough to cut into the fibers of Dick’s shirt. In return, Dick swung hard, striking Damian across the face. Damian staggered back, blood welling into his mouth, his lip split.

“ _Tt._ ”

Damian’s eyes flickered up at the small sound, eyeing the long smirk on Dick’s mouth. A rush of anger flooded through Damian, his face hot.

“Is this always a game for you?” he snapped. Dick’s expression became serious once Damian charged in.

Damian could feel the force in his arm as he knocked away one of Dick’s escrima sticks. He swung hard, feeling bone under his pommel strike. Damian’s heart was beating hard and fast. He felt every pulse in his body as he attacked again, and again, and again. Dick fell back from the sheer power of Damian’s hits, losing his balance, blood on his face. Dick made a small groan as Damian struck him with the pommel again.

Damian’s mind was racing. Something was pulling at him, telling him to stop. He worked against it, chest twisting as he fought harder. Dick was bleeding. Dick was in pain. And every instinct that Dick had instilled in him—the ones that taught Damian how to save, how to protect—butted heads against Damian’s disciplined years as an assassin and the awful decisions he had made.

His mother’s words seemed to boom inside of his head:

_Give it up. Give him up. It’s the only thing that will make you stronger._

Damian cut Dick across his shoulder, warm blood spraying across his face. The other escrima fell, and Dick with it. Dick crashed onto the floor with a hard thud, but rolled out of the way as Damian bore down, the sword hitting stone, sparks flying up.

Quickly, Dick moved to his feet, but not fast enough to gain distance. Damian charged him. To his surprise, Dick did not dodge. Dick held onto him. Damian saw the strain in his face, listened to the heavy breathing in his ear. It was taking all of Dick’s strength to grab onto him, to—

Damian realized his mistake only after it was too late. He had forgotten Dick’s strengths. Not just the physical abilities he had, but the mental. The ones that hadn’t faded with age. Dick had purposefully gotten under Damian’s skin, had made him blind, and by the time Damian realized where Dick had positioned them on the playing field, it was too late.

Damian was hoisted over the platform. The sword, an heirloom from Ra’s to his mother to him, was the first to fall. It somersaulted through the air. Damian didn’t catch its plunge into the water—his world was too busy spinning around him as he fell. For a moment, he could only focus on the drop of his stomach, the breeze through his hair, the smell of the waters—and even though the sensation of falling only lasted for a few seconds, he remembered it all. The smell of the bay, the swan dives off roofs and into the darkness, followed by—

The grapple. The line zipped through the air with a sharp sound, catching around his arm. Damian grunted as he grabbed on. Dick’s pained cry echoed throughout the cave, but he held on even as Damian’s weight and the force of his stop yanked hard onto the line.

Damian angled his head upwards, Dick swaying in his vision as the line pendulumed. Dick was looking down at him, hair plastered in sweat on his forehead, face flushed with his effort to hold Damian up.

Damian understood. Dick couldn’t beat him. Throwing Damian over the edge was the only way to stop him.

Rather, it was the only way to save Batman.

Dick was so exhausted and breathless that his laugh seemed more punched and forced than natural.

“God, you’ve changed,” he said. Damian just stared at him, humorless. “Can’t really hold you up with one arm anymore, can I?” Dick’s face grew more serious, his eyes moving. “I got you, but I need you to climb up. Let’s talk.”

Damian just looked at him. His anger had been tossed away in the shock of falling. Now, as he locked eyes with Dick, he could feel the rage fading. Instead, he felt numb. Damian’s eyes lowered.

“There you are—still choosing Batman,” he said, and he didn’t quite care if Dick heard him or not.

Damian had some tricks on the back of his belt too. A promethium dagger, strong enough to cut through anything. Dick spotted its glint and knew instantly.

“Damian!”

In a single swipe, Damian sliced through the line. And for a moment, he was content. Content to fall. But almost instantly, as soon as he felt the release that tethered him to that cave, he saw a shadow fly over him.

Damian closed his eyes.

_Grayson, you idiot._

He hit the surface hard. He was under the rushing waters, too lost in the frantic pull to listen for Dick. Damian pushed through the water, swimming up.

Damian sucked in air. The cave waters were frantic and loud, a roar in his ears. Violently, he was tossed through the push and shove of the torrents. All of his strength was used to keep himself afloat. In the chaos and blur, he saw a rock sticking its head above the white spray. Damian kicked himself toward it. He grunted as he crashed into it, his arms quickly finding its way around its form.

Damian took a moment to breathe. Across the waters, he saw Dick. He was also holding on, his head laying limply on the surface, his body rising and falling. Damian stared, his heartbeat skipping, then picking up fast. Something was wrong. Dick didn’t fall so much as sank back into the water. Without even thinking, Damian watched intensely as Dick grew closer, timing his arrival, then kicked off the rock when the moment was right. He pushed against the waters, pulling Dick with him.

Moments later, Damian was dragging Dick across the hard cave floor.

Damian tilted his head back, taking a few moments to catch his breath. He pulled at his heavy, soaked robe, letting it fall to the ground. The air felt cold on the water that clung to his skin.

After pacing for a few moments, his heart finally started to even. He stood over Dick, checking on him.

Dick laid there and said nothing to him. Damian wasn’t even sure if he was awake, though his body slowly rose and fell with breath.

Damian stared quietly at the blood sliding from the gash on his temple to the eyepatch. That gray-white hair spotted with red. The uneven shave. The tight muscles of his body that had become old and heavy.

Damian had always known. And yet, the realization fell into him, dragging his heart.

Even though he told himself, over and over again, _Batman and Robin are not forever,_ even though he had set himself to dispose of the entire bat family by his own hand—the realization of his actions sunk in. That _this_ was how it was going to end. Maybe not this night, or the night after—maybe not even with one killing the other, or some sacrificial injury, but with _time._

Dick was going to die as his enemy.

Damian took a step back, his heart beating faster. It would have been better to kill Dick right there. He was barely breathing as it was. It wouldn’t take much to wrap his hands around that slender throat, to finally steal that breath from his lips. It might have even spared Dick the pain of spending his entire life hoping, believing, that Damian would come back home—because Dick hadn’t changed, Dick _would_ do just that, he would never give up hoping for Damian’s return because that was the essence of who he was, he was the person who _always_ believed in Damian—and enduring the heartache when, time and time again, Damian never did.

But Damian couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because if he did kill Dick, then he couldn’t hope to come back either.

Damian left him there. He turned back toward the waters. He could dive back in, and if he survived the torrent, then the cave would push him right back out of Gotham. Right where he belonged.

Damian didn’t make it more than a step when something grabbed at his ankle, leading his eyes back toward the cave.

One blue eye peered up at him between droplets and stray hair.

Damian stared.

“All that shit you said… about me choosing Bruce over you… but isn’t Bruce the reason why you left us? Didn’t _you_ choose him over me?” Dick’s eyes lowered. A faint ghost of a smile traced over where his wrinkles creased as he whispered into the ground: “You hypocrite.”

Damian’s face went hot. He felt heat behind his eyes. But he didn’t scream, didn’t fight. Instead, he kneeled. The hard ground dug and cut into his knees. It hurt, but it provided the balance he needed to get Dick’s arm over his shoulder. With both arms, he scooped him up, looking for the way to navigate back through the cave to the manor.

He felt Dick’s shallow breaths in the crook of his neck. It stuttered, almost like laughter.

Damian remembered those foolish, yet precious, days— _we were the best_ —when Dick was the stronger of them. Whenever Damian ran headfirst into trouble, Dick was the one responsible for getting them out. Damian had killed men and watched great men die. But his trust for Dick had created this aura of invincibility, this feeling that if anything went wrong, Dick would be there. Dick would save him, no matter what.

And even as Damian carried Dick in his arms, he felt that it was still true.

_Grayson._

He really hadn’t changed much.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was the final prompt I accepted. Sorry for the long wait. Thank you all so much for supporting me! I love you all.
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://lacemonsterbats.tumblr.com/)  
> [My Twitter](https://twitter.com/lacemonsterbats)


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